Beasts of the Bastille - a Revolutionary Serial
Part 10 - Bastille Day (the finale)
For Part 1 of this serial, read HERE
For the previous part read HERE
“What delightful sexual escapades, what sensual delights, awaited me in this rented room with this depraved pair dedicated entirely to the wishes of Lucifer and the realization of his kingdom on this earth? Such were my thoughts as I climbed the stair along with the wolfish twins…”
Editor’s Note
At this point in the Marquis de Sade’s narration there is a lacuna, as what is estimated to be a page or two of text is missing from the manuscript.
What was written in this part is not known, but it may be of interest to note that the author’s wife, la Marquise de Sade, Renée-Pélagie Cordier de Launay, wrote in a letter to her brother that “I excised a part of my husband’s description of the Bastille Day events as being more absolutely disgusting than anything he had ever written” – which if true is an eye-opening indication as to the depravity of the events described in this missing section – “and that moreover struck me as entirely implausible.” It seems that Madame la Marquise had little suspicion, as we now know, that the entire narrative of the Marquis de Sade’s escapades on July 14, 1789, was an invention from beginning to end. Thus the excised section, as perverted as it may have been , is neither more nor less plausible than the farrago of inventions from the sick mind of the Marquis.
After this hiatus, the text continues…
THE CITIZEN’S ESCAPADE [continuation]
...which for Marat was no problem at all to obtain. He always seemed to have access to firearms, and in later periods would often be seen, even in the National Tribune of Deputies, to be carrying a pistol or two in his breeches. Soon we mounted onto the wagon with his team of pikemen and chanting fishwives and set off through the streets, the new flag of the Jacobins – showing the red of the bloody revolt, the white of the eventual peace, and the blue of the city of Paris – streaming behind us.
We attracted quite a following on our passage through the city streets. Marat continued screaming out fiery slogans and became quite hoarse; I appointed myself chief refreshments officer of the Revolutionary Council, and soothed his worn-out voice box with good vin de pays.
After a while I noticed that the twins Marie and Joseph were missing from our group. I looked about for them and soon I saw something remarkable: the young man, waving his hat in the air like a festive horseman, riding on a great beast like a huge hound or wolf, as it leapt across the rooftops parallel to our journey towards the royal prison. It was something to be seen, and yet of all that throng I alone was able to see them. I wonder yet whether the history of that great event would have been received in quite the same way if it had become known that a Great Beast, like the Beast of the Gévaudan, had accompanied those first revolutionaries of the Fourteenth of July.
Soon we were across the city and near the gates of the castle of the Bastille, a towering structure which as a resident of so many years I knew very well and had but lately departed. But rarely had I seen it from the outside, and it was indeed an impressive structure, redolent of royal power, blotting out the sun and leaving so much of the city in its terrible shadow.
“AUX ARMES, CITOYENS!” screamed Marat, jumping down from our tumbril. The massed pikemen, Jacobin musketeers and fishwives streamed out around his tiny figure, and it seemed he was swept up with them to be at the vanguard of the assault force. But then when I looked again, the rebellious mob had swept up the street towards the gates and he remained impassively like a rock where he had been before. So he had wisely chosen to lead from the rear. At least he would have his revolution this day. And I mine.
I could swear that I saw about him the shadow of something dark and massive, yet strangely insubstantial. I heard a hoarse voice saying “Four years hence, Marat!” but I took it as the imaginings of one so overtaken with exhaustion and sexual satiety.
And now, looking up to my right, I saw the Great Beast advancing across the final few rooftops on the street, with the young man on its back now holding its fur with both hands and clutching at its sides with his clenched legs. His plumed hat was gone. The creature, who only I and the rider knew to be a succulent and desirable woman, was gigantic now, swollen with the lust for freedom that engorges all flesh until it seems it might burst.
I have never seen such a magnificent sight in my life. My cock grew hard from politico-revolutionary fervor.
The creature, oh sweet delightful monster, gave a mighty leap from the last rooftop just as a laundry maid hanging out sheets on the roof let out a scream and fell to the terrace in a swoon. It was up and over the Bastille’s ramparts and within the fortress at the same exact moment Marat’s assault force reached the gates down below.
The Fall of the Bastille was underway.
I felt some small satisfaction at what I, Citizen Donatien Sade, soi-disant le Marquis de Sade, a scion of the aristocracy now turned leading light of the revolution, had wrought this day. I leaned back in the straw of the wagon bed, and as Chief Refreshments Officer of the People’s Revolutionary Militia, awarded myself a bottle of the insolent though quite refreshing vin ordinairewhich I had brought along.
And to think that in all future commemorations, this day, 14th of July, would be forever remembered as Sade Day, the day the Sadeian Revolution came to fruition.
I leaned back in my horsecart and drained the bottle in one.
===== FIN =====
Note from the authors
Of course the twins, Doctor Jean-Paul Marat, the Glutton Tararre, le Marquis de Sade, and all the characters in this sad tale, lived in an unfortunate time when the poor were exploited by a caste of entrenched parasites who bled them with extortionate rents, high food prices, and miserly pittances for wages, and finally left them to die in the street when their economic utility was at an end… which is of course very different from the situation today
They did not have the redress that we do, to freely elect representatives who represent our interests with integrity and courage, completely free from the influence of the parasitic classes which existed in the Ancien Régime (but not, we repeat, today). They did not have access to a panoply of laws which ensure quality of life, as is the case in our more enlightened times
Since everything today is so very peachy and just, we see no need for resistance or revolution in any form. We call on all of our free and entirely unexploited brothers and sisters to join with us in the following inactions:
NOT to organize with others of your class to call for fundamental change
NOT to resist the power of the state, its peaceful officers and its watchful custodians
NOT to form provisional commissions that carry out direct actions to obstruct the workings of a regime that isn’t in any way oppressive
NOT to strike to oblige your employer to pay you a living wage - the stockholders are already squeezed as it is, and yachts don’t grow on trees!
NOT to demand full citizen rights like education, healthcare and pensions
We hope with this series of completely passive inactions nothing will ever change and the present ideal condition of the planet will go on forever and ever
Meanwhile, keep on voting! As sure as shit is shit, voting for a different, more friendly face will keep things purring over tickety-boo, just as God intended
